Political scientist and media critic

September 07, 2011

Why candidates win: Tactics vs. fundamentals

Today's NYT news analysis by Jeff Zeleny offers a classic example of how journalists attribute political success to tactical strategies. In the course of an article reviewing President Obama's political standing, Zeleny notes that Obama's approval is lower than that of Clinton and Reagan at this point in their terms, which he attributes to their "repositioning" (e.g., move to the center):

The White House can no longer take comfort in comparing the approval ratings for Mr. Obama with Ronald Reagan’s or Bill Clinton’s in the months after their stinging midterm election defeats. By the time their re-election efforts were intensifying after Labor Day, their respective repositioning had helped elevate their approval above 50 percent.

First, as Mark Blumenthal notes at HuffPost Pollster (where I cross-post), the comparison to Reagan and Clinton may be overstated. At this point in their terms, the Gallup approval ratings for Reagan and Clinton were 47% and 44%, respectively, compared with 42% for Obama.

Even if we grant that Obama's standing is lower, however, it's not clear that we should attribute Reagan or Clinton's approval ratings to their tactical positioning. The difference is the state of the economy. In the third quarter of 1983, GDP was growing at a rate of 8.1% (annual rate, seasonally adjusted). In the third quarter of 1995, GDP growth was 3.4% (though it had been slower in the previous two quarters). The most recent figure for Obama shows GDP growth of 1.0% in the second quarter of 2011. Zeleny attributes the difference between the candidates to tactics, but it's likely to largely be the result of the difference in economic performance.

I certainly wouldn't claim that ideological positioning doesn't matter on the margin -- it does -- but its influence tends to be greatly overstated. If you doubt this claim, consider where Obama currently stands. He's gone to extraordinary lengths over the last year to present himself as a moderate who is willing to compromise with Republicans, yet his approval ratings are sinking to new lows. Why? The economy is in terrible shape. No amount of repositioning will solve that problem for him. Unfortunately, even reporters as good as Zeleny tend to lose sight of this reality, particularly when it comes to recounting the supposed lessons of previous presidential campaigns.

Comments

Obama's supposed move to the center seems to be visible only to liberals. As Zeleny's article illustrates, lots of liberals are now complaining that he's too centrist and too accommodating. Yet, virtually all conservatives continue to complain that he's too far left. No wonder he's not popular.

I agree with the POV that he hasn't moved toward the center, or barely so. Zeleny offers one example: temporarily postponing the new ozone rule. As far as I know, that's the only example of Obama's repositioning. OTOH evidence of his continued leftism abounds, such as:

• Kowtowing to union interests, e.g., continuing the illegal effort to prevent Boeing from operating in South Carolina
• Tilting policy to help Dem supporters and punish Republican supporters, e.g., the unjustified raid on Gibson Guitars
• Continued support for tax increases, especially on the higher brackets
• Continued support for massive growth in government spending
• Continued vilification of Republicans, e.g., his recent comment implying that Republicans in Congress were acting in their own interest rather than the nation's interest.
• Continued opposition to undoing his unpopular Health Care law.

Obama's behavior is very different from Clinton's move to the center, when he announced, "The era of big government is over." If Obama really took an ax to big government, Brendan would no doubt argue that the bad economy would still make Obama unpopular. Unfortunately I don't think we'll get a chance to test that idea, because Obama doesn't show any signs of wanting to really move to the center.

It's perhaps worth noting that Bill Clinton's repositioning was largely accomplished despite his digging in his heels. Though he later took credit for welfare reform, the facts are that he vetoed two welfare reform bills, signed the third grudgingly and thereafter attempted to undermine it through the regulations that were promulgated. With respect to the budget, his OMB kept insisting on using unrealistically high assumptions about GDP growth, thereby limiting the extent to which budget cuts would be required. The disparity between the GDP growth assumptions of the OMB and CBO were a major issue in the government shutdown of 1995. Clinton may have run as a centrist but he governed as one only when he had little choice.